For 1,000 years, philosophy in Europe had been dominated by medieval
Christian theologians, and since about the twelfth century by the Scholastic
tradition in particular. Beginning around 1400 in Italy, though, Europe experienced a dramatic intellectual movement called the Renaissance, which
emphasized the resurgence of science and culture through classical influences.
The term “renaissance” literally means “rebirth” and was first used in the 19th
century to refer to this extraordinary period of time. It set a new direction
for art, architecture, music, literature, scientific discovery, and world
exploration. Philosophy was also a beneficiary to this period of renewal. Historians
mark the close of the Renaissance at around 1600 when it blossomed into a
succession of other movements. In philosophy, the stage that follows on the
heels of the Renaissance is called the modern period. In this chapter we
will explore some of the major themes and thinkers in Renaissance and early
modern philosophy.

B. HUMANISM

One of the most distinctive intellectual movements within
the Renaissance was humanism—which was originally called “humanities”,
that is, the study of humanity. The main emphasis of humanism was secular
education using Greek and Latin classics, many newly rediscovered, rather than
medieval sources. Scholars during the Middle Ages had also drawn from classical
Greek and Roman sources, but their larger aim was to use these ancient writers
to bolster Christian theology, and they either ignored or criticized classics
that were inherently in conflict with theology. Renaissance thinkers, by
contrast, appreciated the full spectrum of ancient writers in and of
themselves, irrespective of their application to theology. There were five
traditional subjects in humanities education, namely, grammar, rhetoric,
poetry, history, and moral philosophy. The most significant impact humanism had
on philosophy was the revived study of ancient Greek philosophical schools, thanks
to the publication of new editions and translations of classical texts. The
invention of the printing press during this time made these books much more
available to readers, and the influence of classical philosophy spread like
wildfire. Humanistic philosophers latched onto the earlier schools of Greek
philosophy, almost as though they were pretending that the middle ages never
existed. They variously associated themselves with Platonism, Aristotelianism,
Epicureanism, Stoicism, or Skepticism, interpreting the classical texts and
expanding on them.

Pico: Platonism and Human Uniqueness

One of the most representative humanistic philosophers of
the Renaissance was Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494), a Platonist who emphasized
the uniqueness of human nature. Born into an aristocratic family in northern Italy,
his mother put him on an educational fast track for a career in the Church.
Upon her death, though, he abandoned that goal and turned to philosophy, traveling
widely and studying a diverse range of thinkers, including those of ancient Greece,
Judaism, Islam, and Zoroastrianism. Plato, though, was his primary focus, and through
the financial support of the wealthy Italian ruler Lorenzo de' Medici, he
published translations of Plato’s writings. One of Pico’s ongoing desires was
to set up a forum to publicly debate a book of his titled 900 Theses
(1486), in which he proposes 900 basic principles for discovering knowledge in
religion, philosophy and science. Drawing on his extensive background, he
derived these principles from a variety of philosophical and religious
traditions. The Pope, though, put a halt to his plan by declaring thirteen of the
principles to be heretical, including these two: “No science gives more
certitude of the divinity of Christ than magic and Kabala,” and “A
mortal sin of finite duration is not deserving of eternal but only of temporal
punishment.” He was imprisoned by the Pope, and only released through
the help of his influential patron Lorenzo. He died of poisoning while still in
his early thirties.

A central feature of Pico’s philosophy is a
concept that we now call “the great chain of being,” which was inspired both by
Plato and the Neoplatonist philosopher Plotinus. On this view, there is a
spectrum of existing things, from the lowest level of raw matter up to the
highest level of God himself. Between the two extremes of raw matter and God,
there are a variety of intermediary steps. In the following, he describes three
basic levels of existence beneath God: the realm of the angels, then rational
creatures with physical bodies, then physical bodies with no rational element. He
explains this hierarchical chain here:

Platonists distinguish created
things into three degrees. The first includes physical and visible things, such
as the sky, the elements, and everything made from them. The third is the
invisible and nonphysical, which are completely free from bodies and which are properly
called “intellectual natures” and are divine and angelical. Between these is a
middle nature, which though nonphysical, invisible, and immortal, they nevertheless
move bodies, as is necessary for their function. These are called “rational
souls” and are inferior to angels yet superior to bodies. They are ruled by the
angels, yet are rulers of bodies. Above all of these is God himself, the author
and principle of every creature, and in him divinity has a causal existence. It
is from him that divinity proceeds to the angels in their formal existence, and
from there divinity is derived into rational souls through participation in
their luster. Below that nature nothing can assume the title of the divine. [A
Platonic Discourse on Love, 1.2]

In the above Pico also notes how divinity trickles down from
God, into angels, and then into rational creatures with physical bodies

Drawing on this conception of the great chain of
being, we might ask where human beings fit into the hierarchy? Pico answers
this in his most famous work An Oration on Human Dignity (1486), which
he composed to accompany his public defense of the 900 Theses. According
to Pico, God did not assign human beings any particular spot in the great chain
of being. When creating the world, he filled every level of the hierarchy with
every sort of being: “The areas above the heavens he gave minds. He gave
animated souls to the celestial spheres. He filled the dregs of the lower world
with a variety of animals” (Oration on Human Dignity). When finished,
though, all the spots were filled, and no place was left for human beings:
“Everything had been assigned in the highest, middle, and lowest orders” (ibid).
God’s solution, then, was to place people in the middle realm, and from there
allow us to choose our own spots in the hierarchy, from a low animal level to a
higher divine nature. In the following he describes how God might have instructed
Adam, the first human being, about his freedom to choose his own destiny:

I have given you, Adam, neither a
fixed place nor a fixed form of your own. You may possess any place or any form
as you desire. The laws ordained by me establish a limited nature for all other
creatures. In accord with your free will, your destiny is in your own hands and
you are confined to no bounds. You will fix the limits of your nature yourself.
I have put you in the world’s center so that you may look around and examine
the world’s content. I have made you neither heavenly nor earthly, neither
mortal nor immortal. You may freely and honorably mold, make, and sculpt
yourself into any shape you prefer. You can degenerate into the forms of the
lower animals, or climb upward by your soul’s reason, to a higher nature which
is divine. [Ibid]

Thus, against the backdrop of the Platonistic great chain of
being, Pico explains that our uniqueness as human beings stems from our freedom
to carve out our own values, projects and natures. In this way, he typifies a
classically-influenced optimism about the human capacity and what humans can
hope to achieve if we exercise our highest desire.

C. THE
REFORMATION

An important influence on the direction of philosophy during
the Renaissance is the Protestant Reformation, which began in Germany as a
localized rebellion against the Catholic Church of Rome that at the time
controlled Christianity within Europe. Over the centuries the Church became
increasingly corrupt as Popes fathered children with mistresses and lived more
like worldly kings than spiritual leaders. One of the more controversial fund
raising techniques of the Church was to sell certificates called “indulgences”
to church goers which would allegedly reduce the time that they or a loved one
would have to spend repenting in purgatory before gaining entrance into heaven.
The instigator of the Reformation was a German monk named Martin Luther, who,
fed up with corruption in the Roman Church, posted a document containing 95
Theses attacking abuses in the Church. Luther later said “I would never have
thought that such a storm would rise from Rome over one simple little scrap of
paper.” That little scrap of paper provoked a revolt in Germany,
which quickly spread throughout Europe and then the world. Culturally, the
importance of the Protestant Reformation was that it loosened the grip that the
Medieval Church had on European intellectual thought. The Church kept tight
control over which sorts of books could be published, and which scientific and
religious ideas were heretical and potentially punishable by death. The
Reformation created an intellectual environment outside the influence of
medieval scholasticism and a centralized church authority. Philosophers from
Protestant countries set aside the writings of Aquinas and other official
Catholic philosophers, and explored a vast array of theories that would
otherwise have been considered taboo.

Luther: Rejection of Aristotle

Martin Luther (1483-1546) was born in Eisleben, Germany.
His father operated successful copper mines, and was determined to see his
eldest son improve his life by becoming a lawyer. In an effort to comply,
Martin Luther received his Master’s degree and entered law school. During a
thunderstorm, however, a lightening bolt terrified him into shouting out to the
patron saint of miners, “Help, St. Anne! I’ll become a monk!” He then dropped
out of law school and entered the monastery, to his parents’ disappointment. He
spent long hours in prayer, fasting, and even whipping himself seeking to affirm
his salvation, but all this did was to reinforce his sense of sinfulness. Nevertheless,
he was soon ordained a priest and began teaching biblical theology at the newly
founded University of Wittenberg. The more Luther studied, however, the more he
questioned the Church’s official view of salvation and use of indulgences, and
he ultimately concluded that salvation is a gift of God’s grace through faith,
not through the Church. After disseminating his 95 Theses throughout Europe,
the Church ordered him to recant his position, but he refused and was
excommunicated from the Church. Under the protection of a sympathetic German
Prince, he went into hiding, during which time he translated the Greek New
Testament into German. As the Reformation gained momentum in Germany
and beyond, he returned to Wittenberg where he continued lecturing. Luther
later married an ex-nun that he helped escape from her convent, and together
they raised six children. He died at age 62 of a crippling heart attack.

Luther was well versed in medieval philosophy
and its heavy emphasis on Aristotle. For Luther, as with many Renaissance
thinkers, Aristotle came to represent the narrow-minded and authoritarian
position of the Catholic Church, which forced conformity in thinking. In his
efforts to break Christianity free from the rule of the Catholic Church, he
concluded that the entire university curriculum also required serious
overhauling, especially by rejecting its heavy reliance on books by Aristotle.
The universities, he argues, “are full of dissolute living, where very little
is taught of the Holy Scriptures and of the Christian faith, and the blind
heathen teacher, Aristotle, rules even more than Christ” (Appeal to the
German Nobility). Aristotle’s writings, says Luther, are incomprehensible,
useless, and countless Christians “have been fooled and led astray by the false
words of this cursed, proud, and dishonest heathen. God sent him as a plague
for our sins” (ibid).

A case in point, according to Luther, is
Aristotle’s book On the Soul, which takes the position that the human
soul is the form of the human body and cannot be separated from it. Medieval philosophers
attempted to adapt Aristotle’s position to make it compatible with the
Christian notion of life after death. Luther, though, doesn’t buy it. “Doesn’t
the wretched man in his best book, On the Soul, teach that the soul dies
with the body, though many have tried to save him with vain words?” (ibid).
Further, Aristotle’s Ethics discusses virtues that every morally good
person should have, such as courage, temperance, right ambition, right anger,
wittiness, and friendliness. Luther argues that this account of morality
completely misses the mark: “Then there is [Aristotle’s book] the Ethics,
which is accounted one of the best, though no book is more directly contrary to
God’s will and the Christian virtues. Oh that such books could be kept out of
the reach of all Christians!” (ibid). Luther concedes, though, that Aristotle’s
books on Logic, Rhetoric, and Poetics might be usefully studied
in a condensed form by students who wish to improve their speaking and
preaching abilities.

Calvin: Sense of God and Double Predestination

Luther himself never devised a full-fledged “Protestant
Christian philosophy” that aimed to replace the medieval Catholic one. However,
French Protestant reformer, John Calvin (1509–1564) attempted just that. Born
in Noyon, France, Calvin was educated in both scholastic and humanist thought,
and at an early age published a commentary on the Roman Stoic philosopher
Seneca. By his mid-twenties he maintained that France should break free from
the Catholic Church, a view that forced him into exile for the remainder of his
life. In Switzerland, still in his twenties, he completed the first edition of
his Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536), which ultimately
became the theological cornerstone of Presbyterianism and related Protestant
denominations. For most of his adult life he resided in Geneva, where he played
a dominant role in city affairs, transforming it into something like a
theocratic government. In that political capacity, he was involved in the
arrest and execution of a rival Protestant reformer on the heretical charges of
denying the doctrines of the trinity and infant baptism. Calvin died in Geneva
at age 54.

The aim of Calvin’s Institutes, as he
states in its Preface, is to provide a Christian philosophy that will guide
believers in the study of the Bible. At the heart of his position is a series
of doctrines that later became known as the “Five Points of Calvinism.” They
are, (1) total depravity: humanity's complete nature is innately corrupted, (2)
unconditional election: God predestines some people to salvation, (3) limited
atonement: salvation is restricted to those whom God elects, (4) irresistible
grace: the elect must accept God's favor, and (5) perseverance of the saints:
God sustains the salvation of the elect in spite of their weakness.

Two areas of Calvin’s thought are of special
interest among philosophers today. The first is his notion of the sense of divinity,
which is that everyone has an instinctive knowledge of God. He writes,

We hold to be beyond dispute that
there exists in the human minds and indeed by natural instinct, some sense of
divinity. This is so since, to prevent any person from pretending ignorance,
God himself has given all people some idea of his Godhead. He constantly renews
and occasionally enlarges our memory of this. [Institutes, 1.3.1]

A consequence of our instinctive knowledge of God is that
our own conscience condemns us when we fail to worship God or live devoutly.
His main proof that such an instinct exists is that throughout the world, even
in the most primitive tribes, people still hold a conviction of God’s existence
and a conception of religion. To assure that we properly understand God’s
greatness, he argues, God has also engraved his glory upon creation itself, so
that by merely looking at nature around us we will grasp the scope of God’s
grandeur. Thus, no one, “however dull and illiterate, can plead ignorance as
their excuse” regarding God’s existence and power (ibid 1.5.1).

A second area of interest with Calvin’s
philosophy is his position of double predestination: God not only pre-selects
some people for salvation, but he also pre-selects others for damnation. He
writes, “No pious person could simply deny the predestination by which God
adopts some to the hope of life, and pronounces others to eternal death” (ibid,
3.21.5). Thus, whether we are saved or not, according to Calvin, is entirely up
to God, and we have no free choice over the matter. Double predestination is a
conscious decision by God, and he warns that we should not try to dilute God’s
authority in this matter by appealing to the doctrine of foreknowledge. For
example, we might be tempted to say that God really doesn’t pick out some
people for salvation and others for damnation, but, instead, God just looks
into the future and sees what choice I will make, specifically, whether I
decide to accept God or not. Calvin agrees that God indeed has foreknowledge,
however he insists that it has nothing to do with predestination. God sets the
agenda for who is saved and who is damned, not us. He writes,

By predestination we mean
the eternal decree of God, by which he determined with himself whatever he
wished to happen with regard to every person. All are not created on equal
terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation.
Accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say
that each person has been predestined to life or to death. [Ibid, 3.21.5]

For Calvin, God not only singles out individual people for
salvation or damnation, but he can select entire communities for either fate as
well.

D. SKEPTICISM AND FAITH

As Renaissance humanists resurrected the ancient Greek
schools of philosophy—such as Platonism, Stoicism and Epicureanism—many also
latched onto the ancient school of Skepticism. The writings of the Greek
skeptic Sextus Empiricus were particularly popular as they went through dozens
of new editions in the decades following the creation of the printing press. Unlike
the other ancient schools of philosophy, though, Skepticism had a built-in
liability: it recommended that we doubt the existence of God. That, and its
other anti-religious recommendations, may have worked fine in ancient times
when political and religious officials did not closely micromanage the
religious affairs of the average person. Since the middle ages, though, things
were different in Europe. Even though the Renaissance and Reformation opened up
new religious possibilities for believers, religious and political authorities
nevertheless firmly controlled what they deemed to be heretical, and the
skeptical denial of God’s existence certainly crossed the line. The few bold
souls who publicly proclaimed atheism were quickly executed. Even as late as
the year 1697, a young Scottish college student was hanged for blasphemy. Thus,
the new breed of Skepticism that emerged during the Renaissance needed to
operate within the confines of traditional Christian belief, whether Catholic
or Protestant. The solution was to marry skepticism with the “faith-alone”
religious position. Recall the issue of faith vs. reason that set the direction
for much of philosophy during the middle ages. At the one end of the spectrum,
theologians like Tertullian and Pseudo-Dionysius held that religious truth must
be discovered through faith alone, with no guidance from reason; this is the
faith-alone position. Near the other end of the spectrum, Aquinas held that
reason can independently discover many of the truths that we learn through
faith. Thus, by embracing the faith-alone position and its rejection of reason,
believers of the time could safely adopt skepticism, without fear of punishment
by the authorities. The main message of this new breed of skeptics, then, was
that skepticism prepares people for faith by showing the bankruptcy of reason.

Montaigne: What do I Know?

One of the most famous Renaissance skeptics was philosopher
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533–1592). Born into a wealthy family near the
French city of Bordeaux, as a young boy he was instructed by his father who,
having peculiar views about education, emphasized the Latin language so much
that the young Montaigne didn’t learn French until age six. At that point
Montaigne received more traditional schooling and, after his University studies,
worked in government and law. He retired from public office in his mid
thirties, devoting his time to writing. The works he composed were rather
unique. Rejecting the writing style of technical and scholarly treatises, he
instead composed short, speculative and personal pieces, which he called
“essays”, in French literally meaning “attempts.” In all, he composed 107 essays
on a wide range of topics, which he worked on throughout the rest of his life,
interrupted occasionally with political tasks. He died at age 59 from an
inflammation of the throat, hearing the Latin mass on his deathbed.

Montaigne was rather pessimistic about the
direction of his culture at the time, rampant as it was with corruption and violence.
Much of the blame, he argued, rested with human nature itself; he writes that
“man is a marvelously vain, inconsistent, and unstable thing, and on whom it is
very hard to form any certain and uniform judgment” (Essays, 1.1). This
level of suspicion about human nature feeds directly into his appreciation of
skepticism. While advocating skepticism, though, at the same time Montaigne
holds on to faith as the sole source of our knowledge of religion. He writes
that “it is faith alone that grasps the deep mysteries of our religion” and he
supports this position with passages from the Bible that debunk the value of
human reason (Essays, 2.12). This is precisely where the skeptical
tradition from ancient Greece can be of value, since it too doubts the capacity
of reason to give us knowledge: “The profession of the Pyrrhonian skeptics is
to waver, to doubt, to inquire, and never be assured of anything nor explain
himself.” Through this rigid practice of doubt, the skeptic is freed from the
disturbances that claims about knowledge typically give people as they are
tugged by the sway of reason in every conceivable direction. Through doubt,
then, they achieve tranquility. Even their very claim to “I doubt X” is something
that they also subject to doubt, as Montaigne explains here with the metaphor
of a laxative:

When they say, “I don’t know,” or
“I doubt,” they say, that this proposition expels itself along with other
propositions, just as rhubarb [i.e. a laxative] purges one of bad humors and is
itself purged. This attitude is more clearly seen in the question “What do I
know?” I bear these words as inscribed on a pair of balances. [Ibid]

In the above passage Montaigne uses the expression “What do
I know” which became a trademark for his skeptical views.

By forcing reason into the arena of faith, Montaigne
argues, we get confusing and incomprehensible doctrines about God’s nature. From
the skeptics we learn the limitations of reason, and the damage that this does
to our faith:

When we say that “the infinity of
ages, as well past as to come, are but one instant with God”; that “His
goodness, wisdom, and power are the same with His essence,” our mouths speak
it, but our understandings do not grasp it. And yet such is our outrageous
opinion of ourselves, that we must make the divinity pass through our filter.
From this proceed all the dreams and errors with which the world abounds, when
we reduce and weigh in our balance a thing so far above our position. [Ibid]

Ultimately, he argues, “It is faith alone that embraces
vividly and with certainty the high mysteries of religion” (ibid).

Montaigne’s commitment to skepticism went beyond
matters of faith and reason, and, like his ancient Greek predecessors, he took
a skeptical stand on morality. Morality, he argues, is driven by custom. As we
look around the world, we see the strangest behavior. Even when our conduct starts
out innocently, over time it becomes more and more bizarre, all the while becoming
firmly fix within society through custom. Eventually, we lose all courage in
opposing what custom mandates, and we just fall in line. How extreme does it
get? He offers some examples here:

[There
are societies] where they boil the bodies of their dead, and afterwards pound
them to a pulp, which they mix with their wine, and drink it; where the most
coveted burial is to be eaten by dogs; . . . where women urinate standing and
men squatting; where they send their blood in a token of friendship . . . where
the children nurse for four years, and often twelve; ... where they circumcise
the women; . . . in another it is reputed a holy duty for a man to kill his
father at a certain age; . . . where children of seven years old endured being
whipped to death, without changing expression. [Ibid, 1.22]

It’s not just our behavior that is dictated by custom, but
our conscience itself—the very standard that we use to judge right and wrong—is
molded by the customs of our society:

The
laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from
custom. Since everyone has an inward reverence for the opinions and manners
approved of and received among his own people, no one can, without very great
reluctance, depart from them, or apply himself to them without approval. [Essays,
“Of Custom”]

Thus, the pressure on our conscience from social custom is
so strong that it is virtually impossible to break free from it.

Pascal: Wagering on God

Another French philosopher who integrated faith with a
skeptical stance towards knowledge was Blaise Pascal (1623–1662). Born in Clermon,
France, after the early death of his mother Pascal was educated in Greek and
Latin by his father. As a youth he showed a special capacity for mathematics,
and at age 16 he published a work on that subject. At around age 19 he invented
the first calculating machine, hoping it would help his father compute taxes at
his government job. His early interests also extended to science and he became
active in the raging debate of the time about whether a vacuum could exist. When
Pascal’s father had become ill, the two physicians who attended him were members
of the Catholic Jansenist movement, which led Pascal to a religious awakening. In
his early thirties he had a second and more intense religious conversion after
almost dying in a carriage accident. He thereafter affiliated himself with
Jansenists, writing in their defense on various religious controversies. Pascal
suffered various debilitating illnesses through most of his adult life, which
ultimately led to his early death at age 39. It was during his final years that
he wrote his major contribution to philosophy, an unfinished work in outline
form that only appeared in print after his death under the title Thoughts.

Pascal never identified himself as a philosophical
skeptic, and, in fact, the principal aim of his Thoughts was to defend
Christianity by showing the inconsistencies in views of skeptics such as
Montaigne. For example, Pascal offers the following critique of Montaigne’s skeptical
view of custom and morality:

Montaigne is wrong. Custom should
be followed only because it is custom, and not because it is reasonable or
just. But people follow it for this sole reason, that they think it just.
Otherwise they would follow it no longer, although it were the custom; for they
will only submit to reason or justice. Custom without this would pass for
tyranny; but the sovereignty of reason and justice is no more tyrannical than
that of desire. They are principles natural to man. [Thoughts, 325]

Contrary to Montaigne, Pascal contends that custom is not
the source of morality, and people only follow custom because they think it is
moral.

At the same time, though, Pascal was quite skeptical
about the value of human reason in general: “There is nothing so conformable to
reason as this disavowal of reason” (ibid 173). Reason, he argues, is grounded
in feelings and, as such, it is changeable and can offer us no consistent rule
of guidance. Further, he argues, reason presents a major stumbling block to many
of the non-rational views that we hold through religious faith: “If we submit
everything to reason, our religion will have no mysterious and supernatural
element. If we offend the principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and
ridiculous” (ibid 174). Accordingly, Pascal believes that reason can tell us
nothing about the existence of God, and the rational proofs for God’s existence
ultimately fail.

If reason cannot settle the issue of God’s
existence, then what possible motivation do we have for believing in God?
Pascal answers this with his famous wager:

Since a choice must be made, let’s
see which interests you the least. You have two things to lose: the true and
the good. And you have two things to stake: your reason and your will; that is,
your knowledge and your complete happiness. And your nature has two things to
shun: error and misery. Your reason is not more wounded, since a choice must
necessarily be made in choosing one rather than the other. Here a point is
eliminated. But what about your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss
in taking heads that God exists. Let us weigh these two cases. If you gain, you
gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager without hesitation, then, that
he is. [Ibid, 233]

In a nutshell, his position is this: when reason is neutral
on the issue of God’s existence, the balance of positive and negative
consequences of believing vs. disbelieving in God should compel us to move
towards a faith-based belief in God. The options that Pascal lays out in the
wager are these:

| Believe Don't
believe

God exists | infinite
happiness nothing

God doesn't exist | nothing nothing

Thus, if we gamble by believing in God, we might gain
infinite happiness, whereas if we gamble by not believing in God we gain
nothing.

The wager itself, though, is not meant to be a
rational proof for God’s existence or even an attempt to rationally settle the
issue of whether you should believe in God. Instead, it is an appeal to your
feelings, your desire to be happy. The wager is only the first step towards
belief in God insofar as it simply establishes your desire. The second step is
to put yourself in a position where you can be touched by God through a
religious experience. To that end, he says, you should do what other believers
have done: participate in religious rituals. Go to church and use holy water as
though you believed in them, and the mere practice of these things will open
you to an experience that will enable you to truly believe.

E. THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

European science dramatically advanced during the 16th
and 17th centuries, a period that historians now refer to as the scientific
revolution. While scientists during the late middle ages were making discoveries,
a tipping point occurred in the area of astronomy when Copernicus published his
sun-centered theory of the cosmos, which overturned the prevailing earth-centered
model that dated back to the time of Aristotle. This sparked innovations in all
areas of science, including the development of more sophisticated scientific instruments.
In addition to the particular discoveries that were made, scientists also
developed methods of scientific investigation, which they felt would help them
push the boundaries of knowledge more efficiently and systematically.

Bacon: Induction and the Scientific Method

The champion of the scientific method and acclaimed father
of modern science was Francis Bacon (1561-1626). He was born in London into a noble household, educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, began his career in
the field of law, and progressively climbed the ranks within British government,
eventually holding the position of Lord Chancellor. At around age 60 his career
and reputation plummeted. He was continually in debt throughout his adult life
and often sought desperate means for paying off is creditors, which ultimately
led to him being charged with political corruption. For this he was briefly
imprisoned in the Tower of London, fined a substantial sum of money, and barred
from his place in the British Parliament. He died at the age of 65 after
becoming ill when stuffing a chicken with snow to test whether that would slow
down its decay. Bacon published works on a range of subjects in science,
history, and moral philosophy. He envisioned composing a lengthy plan to
reorganize all of the sciences; of the few portions that he did complete, the
most famous is the New Organon (1620). The title is an allusion to
Aristotle’s Organon (literally meaning “instrument”) which contains the
logical portions of his works. By incorporating this term into his title, Bacon
was boldly advertising that he was offering a new approach to logic that aimed
to replace the outdated one of Aristotle.

The main point of difference between their two
conceptions of logic is that Aristotle’s system was deductive, while Bacon’s
was inductive. Deduction involves a structure of demonstration similar to
mathematics, and Aristotle’s specific form of deductive argumentation is the
syllogism as expressed here:

1. All men are mortal.

2. Socrates is a man.

3. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

The important feature of deductive arguments, such as the
above, is that the meaning of the conclusion is completely contained within the
premises. Further, as long as the premises are true, the conclusion follows
with absolute necessity, with no exception whatsoever. Induction is an entirely
different strategy that involves generalizations based on observations, such as
this:

(a) Rock 1 falls
to the ground when I open my hand.

(b) Rock 2 falls
to the ground when I open my hand.

(c) Therefore,
all rocks similar to 1 and 2 will probably fall to the ground when I open my
hand

What is central to inductive arguments such as the above is
that specific instances are used as evidence for a universal conclusion. That
is, the premises only tell us about two rocks, and the conclusion generalizes
about all similar rocks; as such the conclusion goes well beyond the
information contained in the premises. This means that the conclusion does not
follow with absolute necessity, but only with a specific degree of probability.

Bacon argues that induction is much more
suitable for science than deduction is. In science, we begin with observations,
and from these try to extract more general truths about nature. Specific
observation is critical to this process, as he expresses at the very opening of
the New Organon: “Man, who is the servant and interpreter of nature, can
act and understand no further than he has observed in either the operation or
the contemplation of the method and order of nature” (New Organon, 1.1).
Deduction, by contrast, is not capable of drawing universal conclusions from
specific observations, and thus confines us to the small amount of facts that
we know: “The [deductive] logic now in use serves rather to fix and give
stability to the errors which have their foundation in commonly received
notions, rather than to help the search after truth. So it does more harm than
good” (ibid, 1.12). Because of their reliance on deductive logic, scientists of
the past have barely penetrated into the inner recesses of nature. To break
these barriers, “our only hope is true induction” (ibid, 1.14).

The precise inductive method that Bacon proposes
is in three parts, or three “tables” as he calls them. The first of these is
the “table of presence”: we should examine instances in which the same
phenomenon is present, and note what other circumstances are in common.
Suppose, for example, that several students on campus get sick to the stomach. To
determine the cause, we should first examine what they all have in common, such
as them having eaten the tuna casserole in the school cafeteria. Second is the
“table of absence”: we should examine instances in which a phenomenon is
absent, and note what circumstances are in common. Again, with the stomach
illness on campus, we should examine what all non-sick students have in common,
such as them not having eaten the tuna casserole. Third, there is the table of
degrees: examine instances in which a phenomenon is present in varying degrees
and note what circumstances also vary. For example, once we’ve reasonably
identified the tuna casserole as the cause of the illnesses, we can give
differing portions of the contaminated item to different people to see how sick
they get.

Galileo: Separating Science from Religion

As science moved forward, it inevitably raised questions
about the compatibility of religion and science—a new twist to the longstanding
issue of the relation between faith and reason. One scientist was caught
directly in the middle of this sensitive transition from the old system to the
new one: Galileo Galilei (1564–1642). Born in the Italian city of Pisa,
at a young age Galileo was multi-talented, playing the lute and organ (taught
by his father, a professional musician), building toys, and doing skilled
painting. But none of these were to be his calling in life. After abandoning
thoughts of becoming a priest, he bent to his father’s urging and entered the University of Pisa to study medicine. Leaving this for lack of funds, he then switched
fields to mathematics. After his father’s death, Galileo moved to the University of Padua, teaching mathematics, geometry, mechanics and astronomy, later
becoming chair of the mathematics department. Though a devout Catholic, Galileo
fathered three children out of wedlock. Feeling that his two daughters were
thus unmarriageable, he sent them to a convent at an early age, where they
remained the rest of their lives. His son, however, was later legitimized and
allowed to marry.

After developing the telescope, he used it to
gaze at night sky and made several discoveries that supported Copernicus’s
view that the earth revolves around the sun, not the reverse. He observed sun
spots, mountainous surfaces on the moon, Jupiter’s moons revolving around that
planet, and the phases of the planet Venus. When he published a work defending
the sun-centered system, opposition arose against him within the Catholic Church
on the grounds that his views ran contrary to scripture and Church authority. An
edict was issued requiring him to renounce his theory, which he did. He was
sentenced to imprisonment, then commuted to house arrest, where he lived
another eight years, producing more writings before becoming blind. It took
another one hundred years for Galileo to be fully exonerated by the Church,
when it authorized the publication of his complete scientific works.

When aggressively putting forward his views on
astronomy, Galileo was well aware that he was entering territory controlled by
the Church. He responded by arguing that science and religion are different
arenas of knowledge and should be kept separate. The immediate problem was that
the Church was taking an overly-literal interpretation of biblical passages in
support of the old earth-centered system, such as passages about the movement
of the sun. For Galileo, though, it’s risky business when imposing any
interpretation on the bible that might afterwards be contradicted by scientific
evidence from our senses. He asks, “Who can assure us that everything that can
be known in the world is known already?” (Letter to Castelli). The role of
scripture and religion is to teach us truths about salvation, which would not
be available to us by any other means than divine revelation. However, that’s
not the case with science: God has given us senses, reason, and understanding,
and it makes no sense for God to forbid us from using these intellectual tools
in scientific matters and rely instead on revelation. This is precisely the
case with astronomy, he argues, since the scriptures say virtually nothing
about the subject. Thus, scientific investigation should not begin with
scripture, but with experimentation:

In discussing natural phenomena we
ought not to begin with texts from Scripture, but with experiment and
demonstration. For, from the Divine Word, both Scripture and Nature do alike
proceed. And I can see that that which experience sets before our eyes
concerning natural effects, or which demonstration proves to us, ought not on
any account to be called in question, much less condemned, upon the testimony
of Scriptural texts, which may (under their mere words) have meanings of a
contrary nature. [ibid]

Accordingly, Galileo argues, Church officials should not
presume to tell scientists what they are to believe.

While many advances during the scientific
revolution reshaped people’s conceptions of the place of humans in the cosmos,
this was especially so with the shift away from the old medieval earth-centered
system towards the sun-centered one, which Galileo helped push forward. First, under
the older sun-centered system, the universe was of finite size: at the outer
edges all the stars were attached to a single orbital sphere that rotated
around the earth at its inner core. The very placement of the earth at the
center of things was a sign that humans were at the focal point of God’s
creative activity. Under the new system, though, the universe is infinitely
large, with stars strewn everywhere across the sky, and the earth is no longer
the physical center of things. Second, under the old system, heavenly bodies
such as the sun, moon and planets were thought to be made from perfect eternal
substances that were vastly different in composition from the finite and
imperfect material stuff that made up the earth. Under the new system, though, heavenly
bodies are stripped of their eternal nature and instead composed of the same
finite stuff as the earth. Third, under the old system, God was seen as an
active force in the daily functioning of the universe, and the ultimate source
of all motion. Under the new system, though, the physical universe is
potentially self-sustaining. Even if God did create everything at the start,
the new model offered a mechanistic explanation of the cosmos’s operation that
did not rely on God as a continuing active force.

Newton: God’s Role in the Physical Universe

By 1700, no one had a better grasp of the science behind the
cosmos than Isaac Newton (1642-1727) and, thus, he was the default expert on
God’s role in the physical universe. Born in Grantham, England,
Newton was educated at Cambridge University and spent many years teaching
there, gaining an international reputation through his mathematical and
scientific publications. His Principia Mathematica (1687), one of the
greatest contributions to science, presented groundbreaking theories on motion,
gravity, and the movement of the planets. To assist him in making the
mathematical calculations in the Principia, Newton developed the
calculus, but kept this a secret for several decades until German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz developed then published his own version of the
system. This resulted in a protracted controversy between them over who was the
true inventor; the consensus today is that they both invented it independently.
In his later years Newton briefly served in the British Parliament, and
for the remainder of life was Master of the Mint and president of the Royal
Society of London, Britain’s most esteemed scientific institution. He died at
age 85.

In a later edition of the Principia Newton
made the famous statement “I invent no hypotheses,” making clear that he was
focusing only on how the principle of gravity worked, and not what the
underlying causes of gravity are. Like the principle of Ockham’s Razor, this
illustrates his desire to keep science focused on observable phenomena, rather
than making elaborate speculations about the secret nature of things. Yet, at
the same time, Newton was privately interested in the hidden forces behind the operations
of nature, particularly regarding God’s role in the creation and operation of
the cosmos. To this end, Newton offers a design argument for God’s existence
based on the mechanical precision of celestial bodies, which cannot be
accounted for by chance. For, even a few tiny differences in the size and
gravity of the planets would throw them into irregular orbits. He writes,

had the quantity of matter in the
sun or in Saturn, Jupiter, and the earth (and by consequence their gravitating
power) been greater or less than it is; [then, in any of these cases,] the primary
planets could not have revolved about the sun nor the secondary ones [i.e.,
moons] about Saturn, Jupiter, and the earth, in concentric circles as they do,
but would have moved in hyperbolas or parabolas or in ellipses very eccentric.
To make this system, therefore, with all its motions, required a cause which
understood and compared together the quantities of matter in the several bodies
of the sun and planets and the gravitating powers resulting from thence.... And
to compare and adjust all these things together in so great a variety of
bodies, [such a design] argues that cause to be, not blind and fortuitous, but
very well skilled in mechanics and geometry. [Letters to Richard Bentley,
1]

The essence of the above argument is this:

1. The universe exhibits a high
degree of precision in mechanics and geometry.

2. It is improbable that this
precision resulted from chance.

3. Therefore there is a creator of
the universe who is skilled in mechanics and geometry.

Not only does the regular motion of the planets require God’s
engineering skills, but, Newton argues, God’s existence is also needed to
explain why some celestial bodies are luminous, such as the sun and stars, and
others are not luminous, such as the planets.

Thus, for Newton God’s role as cosmic engineer
and creator is evident. However, the next theological question is whether the
continued operation of the universe still depends in some way upon God’s
intervention. God clearly tried hard to make the universe self-sustaining. But
did he succeed in making it completely self-sustaining? Newton
is less clear about this, and he suggests that it depends on differing views of
the universe itself that we might reasonably adopt. For example, if the
universe is of finite size, then God is needed to prevent all the celestial
bodies from converging on each other through gravity and making a single lump
of stuff. On the other hand, if the universe is infinitely large, then God
might have evenly spaced out all celestial bodies so that, by evenly tugging
each other in all directions, they stay in place. In that case, God would not
need to continually intervene to keep the universe from collapsing in on
itself.

F. SECULARIZED NATURAL LAW

As the Renaissance shook up traditional conceptions of
religious authority, it had a strong secularizing effect on society, as we’ve
already seen with Galileo’s efforts to separate science from religion. The
secularizing force of the Renaissance also impacted the dominant conception of
morality during the middle ages, namely, natural law theory. As typified by
Aquinas’s view, natural law is a set of moral standards embedded in human
nature by God; it is part of God’s divine wisdom and his eternal law. We will
look at the views of two early modern philosophers who developed non-religious
views of natural law: Hugo Grotius and Thomas Hobbes.

Grotius: Natural Law and Just War Theory

Hugo Grotius (1583—1645) was born in the Dutch city of Delft,
where he was a child prodigy thanks to the educational influence of his father,
a city official and curator of Leiden University. He attended the University at
age 11, and, while on a diplomatic mission to France at age 15, the King there
praised him as the miracle of Holland. Beginning in his late teens, he assumed
various positions in the Dutch government that involved issues of international
laws and treaties and began writing on the subject. Imprisoned for three years for
his role in a religious controversy, he dramatically escaped with the help of
his wife by hiding in a book case. He took refuge in France for ten years, and
then resumed his career in the Dutch government once the political climate
there became safe. He died from exhaustion at the age of 62 after being
shipwrecked while on a diplomatic mission. Grotius’s most famous work is The
Law of War and Peace (1625), which he composed during exile in France.
Its central theme is that natural law establishes the just conditions for
declaring and engaging in war.

What exactly is “natural law?” For Grotius, it is
a rational principle of morality and social justice which “is so unalterable,
that it cannot be changed even by God himself” (Laws of War and Peace,
1.1). In fact, he goes so far as to say that natural law would still have some
validity even if “we conceded that there is no God” (ibid, Prolegomena). In
this way, natural law is a secular phenomenon, not a divinely-created one. Natural
law, he argues, is on the same level as truths of mathematics insofar as the
denial of the laws of nature would be contradictory. In the same way that the
statement 1=1=3 is inherently contradictory, so too would be a claim that “stealing
is morally acceptable.” Reason itself, he argues, contains a clear standard of
moral rightness, and certain actions are unquestionably evil when “compared
with the nature of a reasonable being” (ibid). Now, God is a rational being,
and so too are we human beings. As such, God and humans are both bound by that
high moral standard of rationality, and our actions are judged right or wrong
accordingly. Even God’s actions, he argues, must be judged right or wrong based
on the moral standard of rationality.

According to Grotius, there is a highest moral
principle of natural law which is embedded in our rational nature, namely, that
we should be sociable—we should live in peace with one another and uphold the
social order. He writes,

Among the traits characteristic of
man is an impelling desire for society, that is, for the social life not of any
and every sort, but peaceful, and organized according to the measure of his intelligence,
with those who are of his own kind; this social trend the Stoics called
“sociability.” [ibid, “Prolegomena”]

From this general moral obligation of sociability, we can
infer five more specific rules of natural law, each of which is central to preserving
social stability: (1) do not take things that belong to others; (2) restore to
other people anything that we might have of theirs; (3) fulfill promises; (4)
compensate for any loss that results through our own fault; (5) punish people
as deserved.

According to Grotius, the above five principles
of natural law are not only at the core of all morality, but they form the main
ingredients of social and political obligation—within our individual countries
and also between countries internationally. The basis of all international law,
he argues, is that we must fulfill the agreements that we make with others (as
expressed in the famous Latin phrase pacta sunt servanda – pacts must be
respected); this is a direct application of the third principle of natural law
above. And, when situations arise that force us into war with a neighboring
country, these principles also underlie the justness of our behavior towards our
enemy. Grotius is thus advocating a position of just war theory, that
is, the attempt to distinguish between justifiable and unjustifiable wars. For
Grotius, natural law theory gives us the exact litmus test we need for making
that distinction.

There are two components to Grotius’s just war
theory. The first involves the just causes of war, that is, why we might
be justified in waging war with any country to begin with. He says that there
are three main just causes: to defend ourselves against attack, to seek
reparation for some harm that an enemy country has done to us, and to punish a
country for inflicting us with some harm. Some wars result merely from the
desire to inflict cruelty, completely disconnected with any good reason, and
such acts of aggression are clearly unjustified. While every country that
engages in war attempts to justify its actions, many justifications are only
pretexts which do not stand up to moral scrutiny.

The second component of his just war theory
concerns the types of combat techniques that we might rightfully use against
our enemy. Can we kill enemy prisoners? Can we kill civilians? Can we lay waste
to an entire countryside? For Grotius, there is a moral mandate of moderation
that requires us to temper our actions during war. First, we need to preserve
the lives of the innocent whenever possible:

Though there may be circumstances,
in which absolute justice will not condemn the sacrifice of lives in war, yet
humanity will require that the greatest precaution should be used against
involving the innocent in danger, except in cases of extreme urgency and
utility. [Ibid, 3.11]

Grotius is here drawing a fundamental distinction between
combatants and noncombatants, which in contemporary just war theory is referred
to as the principle of discrimination. For Grotius, innocent
noncombatants include women, children, and religious ministers. Killing these
would serve no military purpose, and would be nothing short of cruel. Protection
also needs to be extended to farmers, merchants and artisans whose activities
help sustain the society itself. Killing off this segment of the population
would permanently cripple a country and would not be justified on military
grounds. In addition to the principle of discrimination, Grotius also
articulates a principle that we now call proportionality: destruction
should not extend any further than is necessary to make the aggressor pay for
his offence. He writes,

Now, driving off some of our
cattle, or burning a few of our houses, can never be pleaded as a sufficient
and justifiable motive for laying waste the whole of an enemy's kingdom. Polybius
saw this in its proper light, observing, that vengeance in war should not be
carried to its extreme, nor extend any further than was necessary to make an
aggressor atone justly for his offence. And it is upon these motives, and
within these limits alone, that punishment can be inflicted. But except where
prompted to it by motives of great utility, it is folly, and worse than folly,
to needlessly hurt another. [Ibid, 3.13]

Ultimately, he argues, there are only three justifications
for destruction of the enemy’s property: first, when destruction is needed to
stop the enemy, second, when the destruction satisfies some debt that the enemy
needs to repay, and, third, when the destruction is the only adequate
punishment for the enemy’s aggression. Any destruction that goes beyond these
three situations is unjustifiable.

In short, Grotius’s view is that natural law is
a rational component of the universe, independent of and uncreated by God. We
access the basic principles of natural law through human reason, and this
guides both our individual moral conduct and the rules we devise for
international law. Natural law tells us under what conditions we might
justifiably wage war against a foreign country, and it also tells us what kind
of warfare tactics are morally justifiable when we engage the enemy.

Hobbes: The Social Contract

A second great contributor to a new conception of morality
and natural law was Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), who took a more skeptical
approach to the subject than did Grotius. Born in Wiltshire, England,
Hobbes was raised by an uncle when his father, a disgraced clergyman, deserted
his family. After completing his university education at Oxford, for several
decades he worked as a private tutor for distinguished families, one of his
pupils being a future King of England. During that time he continued his
studies in Greek and Latin classics, traveled through Europe, and became
acquainted with some of the greatest minds of the time. It wasn’t until around
age 50 that he took a serious interest in philosophy and began composing works
on the subject. His efforts culminated in his greatest work, Leviathan
(1651), which immediately drew harsh criticism for its skeptical and
anti-religious implications. Fearing imprisonment for heresy, he fled England
for a few years; upon his return, he was prohibited for a time from further
publication. He continued writing until his final years when he died from a
stroke at the age of 90.

The backdrop of Hobbes’s political philosophy is
his materialist view of the physical world and human nature. The standard view
of the subject since the middle ages was the dualist position that the universe
contains both material things like rocks, and non-physical spirits such as God
and human souls. Hobbes denied this view, holding that the universe is
comprised entirely of material stuff. The very notion of an immaterial spirit
is groundless, and the first conception of it arose from an abuse of language:

[T]he opinion that such spirits
were incorporeal, or immaterial, could never enter into the mind of any man by
nature; because, though men may put together words of contradictory
signification, as spirit and incorporeal, yet they can never have the
imagination of anything answering to them. [Leviathan, 12.7]

While Hobbes does not deny God’s existence, he argues that
God’s nature is completely inexplicable, and we can say virtually nothing about
him: “the nature of God is incomprehensible; that is to say, we understand
nothing of what he is, but only that he is” (ibid, 34.4). In the mind of
Hobbes’s critics, this view of God was enough to brand him as an atheist.
Hobbes’s materialist position is most reflected in his view that human beings
are comprised exclusively of physical stuff, without anything like an
immaterial spirit. All of the contents of my mind—thoughts, perceptions, desires,
emotions, pleasures, pains—consist only of physical stuff in motion. To
understand human conduct, then, means understanding the operations of the human
physical machine.

Hobbes sets out his political philosophy by
considering how humans behaved in a time before the creation of civil
governments. In this state of nature, or “natural condition” as he calls it, people
had complete freedom to do whatever they wanted. However, this unregulated liberty
led to a condition of war of everyone against everyone in the battle for
survival. He describes this condition of brutality in one of the most famous
passages in philosophy:

In such condition, there is no
place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no
culture of the earth, no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be
imported by sea; no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing
such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth, no
account of time, no arts, no letters, no society; and which is worst of all,
continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary,
poor, nasty, brutish, and short. [ibid, 13.9]

The conflict between people is so entrenched that it grinds
all social progress to a halt, and all I can do is wait for my neighbor to
attack and kill me—or try to get to him first. In this condition there is no
natural basis for justice or morality:

To this war of every man against
every man, this also is consequent, that nothing can be unjust. The notions of
right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no
common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice. Force and fraud are
in war the two cardinal virtues. Justice and injustice are none of the
[instinctive] faculties, neither of the body nor mind. [ibid, 13.13]

On Hobbes’s view, there are three main reasons
for conflict. First, there are limited resources that we all desire for our
survival. Second, human beings are naturally selfish, and do not have the
psychological capacity to help other people merely out of the goodness of their
hearts. All of my actions aim to benefit me, and are selfishly motivated. He
writes, “of the voluntary acts of every man
the object is some good to himself” (ibid, 14:8). Today philosophers call this
position psychological egoism. If we were naturally unselfish, then we’d
happily let other people have what they wanted; but sadly, for Hobbes, that’s
not how we’re designed. Second, human beings have largely the same mental and
physical abilities, and, consequently, there is a more or less equal playing
field when we compete for the same things.

Thus, the state of nature is a miserable amoral condition
that we should escape from if we hope to have a long and happy life. But how
can we do that? The solution, for Hobbes, is to devise an agreement with others;
that is, we form a social contract by which we agree to set aside our
hostilities to create a peaceful society in which we can have long and fruitful
lives. Hobbes sets out the framework of the social contract by stipulating
several “laws of nature” that move us from a state of war to a state of peace.
Law one, for Hobbes, is to seek peace as a means of self-preservation. This
follows directly from our natural right to self preservation, whereby each
person may “use his own power as he will himself for the
preservation of his own nature” (ibid, 14.1). Peace, according to Hobbes, is
the best way of surviving. Law two is that, in our efforts to secure peace, we
should agree to mutually divest ourselves of hostile rights. That is, I should
give up my survival right to attack and kill you under the condition that you
give up your corresponding survival right to attack and kill me. Peace can only
come about if we both set down our weapons at the same time.

Law three is that we should keep the agreements
that we make. Making an agreement to forego hostilities is one thing, but
sticking to that agreement is entirely different. Hobbes recognized that there
is a strong temptation to break our agreements. Once you’ve set down your
weapon, I might be selfishly motivated to quickly pick mine back up, kill you,
then take your possessions. To assure that people keep their agreements, we
need to create a government that has absolute authority to punish offenders:

For the laws of nature, as justice,
equity, modesty, mercy, and, in sum, doing to others as we would be done to, of
themselves, without the terror of some power to cause them to be observed, are
contrary to our natural passions, that carry us to partiality, pride, revenge,
and the like. And covenants, without the sword, are but words and of no
strength to secure a man at all. [ibid, 17.2]

Hobbes’s social contract theory is an even
bolder secularization of natural law theory than what Grotius offered. For
Grotius, natural laws were rational principles like mathematics, and thus
independent of God. For Hobbes, though, the laws of nature are rational from a practical
standpoint: they are the sorts of laws that any rational person should adopt to
save his or her hide:

A law of nature (lex naturalis)
is a precept or general rule, found out by reason, by which a man is forbidden
to do that which is destructive of his life or takes away the means of
preserving the same, and to omit that by which he thinks it may be best
preserved. [Leviathan, 14.3]

Thus, the laws of nature are nothing like rational
principles of mathematics; they are grounded only in the human desire to
survive, and thus are rational only in a pragmatic sense.

G. CONCLUSION

During the Renaissance, philosophy started to have a more
modern feel, and, compared to what went on in ancient Greek and Medieval times,
it is one that we can more easily identify with today. Philosophers of the time
recognized that they were on a new path that departed radically from medieval
scholasticism, and they soon began to refer to their own style of
philosophizing as “modern” – hence the designation “modern” philosophy. Their
first efforts were to breathe life back into the old Greek philosophical schools,
which, they believed, contained a vitality that was lost in the middle ages. The
freedom to newly explore those classical schools, though, required philosophy to
move out from under the control of the Catholic Church. Since ancient times,
philosophers were regularly in trouble with legal and religious authorities,
and even during the Middle Ages the most innovative philosophers found
themselves accused of heresy. While by our standards today the Renaissance was
still a religiously confining environment, the Reformation sparked an era of
religious experimentation which gave more freedom for philosophical
speculation.

What perhaps launched Renaissance philosophy
forward the most, though, were the dramatic advances in science. Scientific
achievements in astronomy, chemistry, biology and engineering set a high
standard for all intellectual disciplines, and philosophers followed that model
of scientific rigor. Bacon in particular believed that philosophy and science
were virtually inseparable, particularly regarding scientific method. In the
centuries following the Renaissance, as we will see in later chapters,
philosophers drew heavily on the science of the time. They were knowledgeable
about the latest scientific advances, some being notable scientists themselves,
and often shaped their writing style in the form of scientific treatises.

Reverend Fathers: In the writings
of the Arabians, I have read that Abdula the Saralen was asked what on the
“world’s stage,” as they say, is the most wondrous. He replied, “There is no
greater wonder than humanity.” Mercury agrees with this opinion: “A magnificent
miracle is humanity!” (Asclepius 1:6). But I am dissatisfied when considering
the reasons for these assertions [such as the following]. Man intermediates
between all creatures, being familiar with the gods, yet rulers of inferior creatures.
We interpret nature by the sharpness of our senses, the judgment of our reason,
and the light of our intelligence. We are the moment between eternity’s
permanence, and the passage of time. As the Persians say, we are the binding
force, no, the marriage union of the world. According to David, we are “just a
little beneath the angels” (Psalms 8:5). These reasons are great, but not the
principal ones. That is, they do not possess the privilege of the highest
admiration. For, why should we not have more admiration for the angels and the
beautiful heavenly choirs? Ultimately, it seems to me, I now understand why man
is the most fortunate of creatures, and worthy of complete admiration. I
understand what their allotted position is in the hierarchy of beings, which is
a role envied by the animals, by the stars, and by the minds beyond the world.
It is something wonderful beyond faith. And why not? It is for this reason that
man is justly deemed a great miracle, and truly wonderful creature. So, with
receptive ears, Fathers, listen attentively to what I say.

Each Person Selects his/her Own Spot in the Chain of
Created Things

By the laws of his hidden wisdom,
God the father and master architect built this worldly home which we observe, a
most sacred temple of his divinity. The areas above the heavens he gave minds.
He gave animated souls to the celestial spheres. He filled the dregs of the
lower world with a variety of animals. But when finished, the architect wished
that there would be someone to appreciate the work, to love its beauty, and
marvel at its size. Thus, all other things finished, as Moses and Timaeus
report, he finally considered creating man. But there was nothing in his
archetypes from which he could form new progeny, nor anything in his supply
house which he might bequeath to a new son, nor was there an empty chair in
which this new being could sit and contemplate the world. All places were
filled. Everything had been assigned in the highest, middle, and lowest orders.
But in this last task, it was not part of the Father’s power to give up as
though exhausted. It was not part of his wisdom to waver because of a lack of a
clear plan. It was not part of his living kindness that he should be praised
for his generosity to others, but condemned for lack of it on himself. Finally,
the master architect declared that this creature, to whom nothing unique could
be given, should be a composite, and have that which belonged exclusively to
all other things.

Thus, God took
humanity, creatures of indeterminate form, placed them in a middle place in the
world, and said this: “I have given you, Adam, neither a fixed place nor a
fixed form of your own. You may possess any place or any form as you desire.
The laws ordained by me establish a limited nature for all other creatures. In
accord with your free will, your destiny is in your own hands and you are
confined to no bounds. You will fix the limits of your nature yourself. I have
put you in the world’s center so that you may look around and examine the
world’s content. I have made you neither heavenly nor earthly, neither mortal
nor immortal. You may freely and honorably mold, make, and sculpt yourself into
any shape you prefer. You can degenerate into the forms of the lower animals,
or climb upward by your soul’s reason, to a higher nature which is divine.”

The Importance of Choosing the
Higher above the Lower

What great generosity of God the
Father! What great and wonderful happiness of humanity! It is given him to have
what he wants and to be what he wants. The animals at the time of their birth,
bring with them from “their mother’s womb” (as Lucilius said) all that they
shall possess. The higher spirits were immediately, or shortly after, what they
were intended to be for eternity. But in embryionic humanity, the Father gave
seeds of all kinds and the germs of all kinds of life. They each will have
grown and will grow in him. With the vegetative, he may become a plant. With
the appetitive he may become an animal. With the rational he may rise to the
rank of heavenly. With the intellective he may be an angel and a son of God. If
he is not content with any of these creatures, he may occupy himself at his
center, become one with the Spirit of God, in the solitary darkness of the
Father, who is above all things. Who would not admire our chameleon, or,
indeed, what else could be more admirable? . . . What makes the angel is
spiritual intelligence, not freedom from a body. If you see a man who is a
slave to his stomach, crawling on the ground, then you see a plant and not a
man. If you see a man made a slave to his own senses, bedazzled by the empty
forms of the imagination and their allurement, such as by the charms of
Calypso, then you see a brute and not a man. If, however, you see a
philosopher, judging and distinguishing all things according to the rule of
reason, you will hold him in veneration, for he is a creature of heaven and not
of earth. If, finally, you see a pure contemplator, unmindful of the body,
wholly withdrawn into the inner chambers of the mind, here indeed is neither a
creature of earth nor a heavenly creature, but some higher divinity, clothed in
human flesh.

Who then will
not look with wonder upon man, upon man who, not without reason in the sacred
Mosaic and Christian writings, is designated sometimes by the term “every
flesh”' and sometimes by the term “every creature,”' because he molds, fashions
and transforms himself into the likeness of all flesh and assumes the
characteristic power of every form of life? This is why Evantes the Persian (in
his exposition of the Chaldean theology) writes that man has no inborn and
proper appearance, but rather many which are extraneous and accidental. Thus,
the Chaldean saying: “man is a living creature of varied, multiform and
ever-changing nature.”

But what is the
end of all this? It is to make us understand that it is up to us, that our
native condition allows us to be what we want. Above all, it is to ensure that
we will not be accused of ignoring our highest duty, becoming like pack animals
and irrational creatures. Rather let us agree with the prophet Asaph: “You are
all gods and sons of the Most High”. Let us not abuse the extreme generosity of
the Father’s indulgence by using free choice for our detriment rather than
salvation. Let a kind of sacred ambition invade our minds and make us
dissatisfied with mediocrity so that we aspired to summits and work with all
our strength to achieve them. For, we can do this if we want. Let us despise
the things of the earth, and even care nothing for the astral orders, devaluing
all that is in the world, and fly to the court which stands beyond the world
near the highest Divinity. There, as the sacred mysteries tell us, the
Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones occupy the first places. Let us then emulate
their dignity and glory, unable as we are to yield to them, and impatient to
hold any second place to them. If we wish it, we will be inferior to them in
nothing.

Importance of Non-Literal Interpretation of Scripture
especially with Science

It seems to me that it was well said by her Most Serene
Ladyship, and insisted on by your reverence, that the Holy Scriptures cannot
err, and that the decrees therein contained are absolutely true and inviolable.
But I should in your place have added that, though Scripture cannot err, its
expounders and interpreters are liable to err in many ways. But one error in
particular would be most grave and most frequent, if we always restricted
ourselves to the literal signification of the words. By doing so not only many
contradictions arise, but grave heresies and blasphemies. For then it would be
necessary to give God hands and feet and ears, and human and bodily emotions,
such as anger, repentance, hatred, and sometimes forgetfulness of past things,
and ignorance of the future. In Scripture there are found many propositions
which, taking the bare sense of the words, appear contrary to the truth. But
they are placed there in such a way to accommodate themselves to the capacity
of common people. For those few who deserve to be separated from the common
crowd, it is necessary for wise expositors to produce the true meaning, and to
explain the particular reasons for which they have been thus worded.

It being established, therefore, that Scripture
is not only capable of varied interpretations, but that in many places it
requires an interpretation differing from the apparent meaning of the words, it
seems to me that in mathematical disputes it must be interpreted according to
the latter way. Holy Scripture and nature are both come from the Divine word;
the former dictated by the Holy Spirit, the latter, the executor of God’s
commands. Holy Scripture has to be accommodated to the common understanding in
many things which differ in reality from the terms used in speaking of them.
But Nature, on the contrary, is unchangeable and immutable, and it cares not
one bit whether her secret reasons and methods of operation are above or below
the capacity of men’s understanding. It appears that, as she never transgresses
her own laws, those natural effects which the experience of the senses places
before our eyes, or which we infer from adequate demonstration, are in no way
to be revoked because of certain passages of Scripture, which may be turned and
twisted into a thousand different meanings. For Scripture is not bound to such
severe laws [i.e., rules of interpretation] as those by which nature is ruled.
For this reason alone, that is, to accommodate itself to the capacities of
common and undisciplined people, Scripture has not abstained from concealing in
shadows its principal dogmas, by attributing to God himself attributes that differ
from and are contrary to his [true] Divine essence. Who can assert or maintain
that, in speaking incidentally of the sun, or of the earth, or of other created
bodies, Scripture should have elected abandon this [flexible] approach and
instead inflexibly confine itself to the strict [and literal] meaning of the
words used? This is especially so when discussing things about these
[celestial] objects which are far removed from the main purpose of holy
scripture. Indeed, if the truth [about celestial objects] had been represented
to us [in scripture] bare and naked, would this not have undermined its primary
purpose since the uneducated would be made more stubborn and difficult to persuade
concerning in the articles concerning their salvation?

Salvation is the Primary Purpose of Scripture, not
Science

This, then, being conceded, and it being clear that two
truths cannot be contrary to each other, it becomes the duty of wise expounders
to labor until they find how to make these passages of holy scripture
consistent with those conclusions, of which either necessary demonstration or
the evidence of our senses have made us sure and certain. The Bible, although
dictated by the Holy Spirit, admits (for the reasons given above) in many
passages of an interpretation other than the literal one. Moreover, we cannot
be certain that the interpreters are all divinely inspired. Therefore, I think it would be the part of wisdom to
forbid anyone to apply passages of Scripture in such a way as to force them to
support as true any conclusions concerning nature, the contrary of which may
afterwards be revealed by the evidence of our senses, or by actual
demonstration. Who will set bounds to human understanding? Who can assure us
that everything that can be known in the world is known already? With the
unchangeableness of articles concerning salvation and the stability of the
faith, there is no danger of any valid and worthwhile innovation being
introduced against them. But beyond these, it would perhaps be best to advise
that none should be added unnecessarily. If it be so, how much greater the
disorder to add to these articles at the demand of people who, though they may
be divinely inspired, yet we see clearly that they are destitute of the
intelligence necessary, not merely to disprove, but to understand, those
demonstrations by which scientific conclusions are confirmed.

I believe that holy scripture is intended to
convince people of those truths which are necessary for their salvation, and
which, being far above man’s understanding, cannot be made credible by science
or any other learning, but only through the voice of the Holy Spirit. But I do
not think it necessary to believe that the same God who gave us our senses, our
speech, our intellect, would have us put aside the use of these, to teach us
instead such things as with their help we could find out for ourselves, particularly
in the case of these sciences, of which there is not the smallest mention in
the Scripture; and, above all, in astronomy, of which so little notice is taken
that the names of all the planets are not mentioned. Surely if the intention of
the sacred writers had been to teach the people astronomy, they would not have
passed the subject over so completely.

STUDY QUESTIONS

Please answer
all of the following questions.

1. What are some of the main features of Renaissance
humanism?

2. Explain Pico’s view of Plato’s three degrees of
created things, the great chain of being, and why humans are so unique.

3. According to Luther, what are the good and bad aspects
of Aristotle?

4. Explain the five points of Calvinism, Calvin’s view of
the sense of divinity, and his view of double predestination.

20. Explain Galileo’s reasoning on why salvation is the
primary purpose of scripture, not science.

[Question for Analysis]

21. Pick any one of the following views by a Renaissance
Philosopher and criticize it in a minimum of 150 words. Pico: Platonism;
freedom and human dignity. Luther: view of Aristotle. Calvin: sense of
divinity; double predestination. Montaigne: custom; skepticism. Pascal: custom;
the wager. Bacon: three tables of investigation. Galileo: science and religion.
Newton: design argument from probability. Grotius: just war theory. Hobbes:
state of nature, the social contract.